The World Is A Stage
by Authoress Tams
Summary: But is the play badly cast? Drabbles/dribbles/short stories of varying genres, with some strong Zutara, Tokka, Sukka, Tyru and Iroh/Tea.
1. Reversal

_**Title**: Reversal_

_**Prompts**: (from destructivesorceress) Scar, Changed_

_**Words**: 404_

_**Notes**: Originally from a drabble contest over in Capslock Zutara on Livejournal. Not much sense out of it, but I like how it turned out, so I didn't edit it. Also, if it looks out-of-character and impossible...it's supposed to be. : ) This is the first thing I've submitted here in five years, here's to hoping it's passable? I just like the popular idea of what Zuko will be like as Fire Lord. _

_**DISCLAIMER:**_

_**I don't own Avatar or any of the characters/concepts in any of the following drabbles. Avatar and all related characters/terms belong to Nickelodeon, Viacom, and Bryan and Mike.**_

She'd certainly changed.

In some ways she was a completely different girl _(woman)_….he didn't remember her ever wearing Fire Nation garb, nor did he remember thinking she'd ever look so _provocative_ in clothing that matched him. He couldn't quite recall seeing such a nice, definitive curve to her exposed waist and stomach muscles, nor did he recognize the appealing swells of her taut shirt—

The Fire Lord forced down a strangled noise unrecognizable to most humans.

It was difficult to do – he'd had quite a bit of trouble managing to keep himself in check ever since she'd been the first of the war heroes to arrive at the palace for a visit after a few years. It would have been easier to ask why she'd arrived a day before Aang, Toph, and Sokka if she hadn't pinned him to the wall on sight.

"You're looking very much the part of the Fire Lord, Zuko," she hissed, her sun-browned face inches from his.

"Funny, you're looking very much the part of someone hoping to be arrested," he answered dryly, though he was still having problems trying to retrieve his dignity.

He'd expected her to retort, but instead she leaned in close, her warm, bare arms pressing against his pale muscles as her lips made their way to his neck.

"I just wanted to tell you it _suits_ you," purred the Waterbender, her vicelike grip relaxing and…oh, Agni, were those her _hands_ suddenly skimming across his powerful shoulders, down over his chest, reaching for unimaginable regions? "And to ask…."

She cocked her head to the side, those gorgeous cobalt eyes predatory. "….if there's anything in the palace resembling that tree you tied me to?"

--

They emerged from the throne room hours later, clothing disheveled and hastily rearranged at the news that the rest of the gang were on their way. Zuko decided his hair wasn't worth trying to salvage and let it fall loose across his shoulders, eyeing Katara as she massaged that enticing spot where her leg and her waist met.

"I'm not sure I'll be able to make small talk with your brother now, not after…." He admired her, a little sheepish, but not without a devil of a grin.

Katara gave him her own sly smile, one that weakened him all over again. "Well, for starters, you might not want to mention that you're not the only one with a scar anymore."


	2. Never Far From My Heart

_**Title**: Never Far From My Heart_

_**Prompts**: None_

_**Words**: 202_

_**Notes**: Written randomly a month or so ago. The only ship in Avatar that, considering its spontaneity so far, will last. :)_

He prepares for a long, silent night with his love, setting the table with precision, down to the last trivial feature. Shadows from the setting sun fall like thin blades across the wooden planks. The china clinks musically together as Iroh takes care not toknock anything over with his portly frame.

He smiles in anticipation. Moments like these are so rare; so little time can be taken to spend with his dearest, now that he and Zuko are on the run. He can hear Zuko's grunts of irritation from outside the shack as he practices, redirecting nonexistent blue lightning with a stony gaze on his scarred face.

Iroh tunes out his nephew's vocal frustration. He can't be bothered, now that he has some quality time to enjoy.

A low, soft sound from the kitchen. The toothy smile on the old man's face widens. _Ah, yes._ That is his cue. This affair has lasted longer than any relationship, even surpassed the length of Fire Lord Ozai's terrible reign.

Iroh's coarse fingers press against the kitchen door, and he peeks inside.

The teapot gleams invitingly back at him.

He swings open the door, pure joy etched across his craggy features.

"Hello, my friend!"


	3. Thaw

_**Title**: Thaw_

_**Prompts**: (from destructivesorceress) "You must have seen her dancing in the sand," - from Tiny Dancer, by Elton John_

_**Words**: 475_

_**Notes**: I love the way comparisons and similes and metaphors flow, and with Avatar fics, they tend to abound. :)_

Sometimes Aang watches Katara when she's not looking.

He's been watching her ever since the two of them met a thousand thousand years ago it feels like, or was it only a summer ago? She's always moved beautifully, with a grace he used to find unnatural to her people, who lumbered around all day in multiple heavy layers like hibernating bears.

Katara moves as though she's never even touched a fur coat, never been weighed down by it. She walks on water and dances on air.

_(Like they once danced together, outfitted in the colors of another nation but using the elements of their own to go through the motions, weaving through air damp from body heat like the spray from a fountain)_

It makes Aang's heart tap out an off-kilter tattoo somewhere in his rib cage; the feeling snakes up his spine like (_her_) fingertips dancing along the scar on his back to heal him.

It thrills him and unnerves him, because he is not thinking only about the effortless fluidity of her arms wheeling about in the air and how her hips shift from side to side, rolling like the water she fuses in midair, beneath the blue robe that suits her eyes.

He is also thinking about Zuko, and how he firebends in a way that looks so like Katara, and how if you stood one in front of the other, their bending would overlap and complement each other in a stunning portrait of elemental symmetry. The coldness of water running down in tangles of vinelike streams darkening the surface and coiling like soldered wire. Beneath it, the intense heat of a torrid blaze, one that sparks against stone and fills the air with its luminosity before furling into a corona of red, of gold, of eerie white-blue.

The coldness of chips of ice reflected in the Waterbender's eyes the day Zuko made himself a part of their team. The fierce warmth of fire that came much later, warmth that was hardly subtle in the eyes of the Fire Prince as he, too, watches Katara bending, walking, doing ordinary things and making them look beautiful. Watching through golden eyes with something that is part admiration, part awe and fear and more of something else. Aang sees that Katara does something to him, taming what remains of Zuko's anger, cooling his intimidating nature like drops of rain sieving through leafy trees to calm a wild conflagration.

(_And Aang is trying to ignore the steam that rises)_

Like the moon eclipsing the sun on a hot summer's day.

He has to swallow hard when he remembers how, in the union of the sun and moon on one such summer's day eclipse, the cool breeze went stale and humid before drowning in the heat.


End file.
